Reading Responses
In his article Culture is Destiny, journalist Fareed Zakaria performs an in-depth interview with Lee Kuan Yew, a political figure who is widely recognized as one of Singpore’s founding fathers. Throughout the interview, Lee, who served as the first Prime Minister of Singapore, continually underscores the difference between Western and Eastern culture as a way of demonstrating the important role that culture plays in determining a country’s political...
In Fareed Zakaria’s 1994 interview with Lee Kuan Yew, four years after he stepped down as Singapore’s Prime Minister (yet stayed as the senior minister in the executive cabinet), Lee Kuan Yew divulged his viewpoints on the United States, culture, and modernization. The two first center the conversation on the United States, wherein Lee Kuan Yew complimented a minimal set of qualities of the USA, but then mostly degraded the nation, specifically the...
In Victoria Reyes’ “Born in the Shadow of Bases,” she tackles the complexities of the plight of Filipino Amerasians across the intersections of familial relations, morality, race, nationality and citizenship. She ties these topics into post-colonial legacies of U.S. imperialism, the role of place, and imaginaries of belonging (or a lack thereof) by Amerasian children. She argues that in this global borderland of Subic Bay, in the “shadow of bases,”...
In his article about the social functions of loc in Vietnam, Alexander Soucy argues that while loc serves a spiritual role in the lives of women, there is also a crucial social role that it plays as a way for women to strengthen relationships and improve on their social standing. Soucy’s guiding concept for this argument is Bourdeiu’s “symbolic capital,” in which gifts partake in an economy of reciprocity to gain social standing.
...The text “The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia” explores both the history of Theravada Buddhism and the way it is seen and used in Mainland Southeast Asia. The origins of Theravada Buddhism began with the birth of Siddhattha Gotama in north India during 563 BC and continues with a small group of monks and nuns that attempted, as closely as possible, to live by his lifestyle and teachings. Theravada Buddhism...
The author explores the intersection of the rise of neoliberalism and the utility of the ‘spiritual economy’ in the Indonesian steel plant, Krakatau Steel. Rudnyckyj takes on three main arguments in understanding how with the rise of ‘spiritualist’ and neoliberalism are working hand in hand. But first an operational definition of ‘spiritual economy’ is necessary. Rudnyckyj lays it out in 3 parts: “(1) objectifying spirituality as a site of management...
In “The Funeral of the ‘Dead Christ,’” Fenella Cannell makes the argument that the funeral of the Pasion of the Amang Hinulid in Calabanga closely emulates and emotionally ties the cult of Amang Hanulid to their own herak (pity) during funerals of their own loved ones and community members. Cannell makes her case that these rituals parallel and are closely connected to each other by first describing the almost full-sized wood carved statue with...
In “Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines,” Fenella-Cannell posits that the Bicolano cult of Amang Hinulid “the dead Christ” connects the religious with the familial by constructing Lent as an intimate funeral experience, wherein religious observers feel personally and familially tied to the death of Christ. Cannell explores this argument by first illustrating the shrine of Amang Hinulid (colloquially known as Ama), a formidable statue of...
Nancy Smith-Hefner, in her article “Javanese Women and the Veil in Post-Soeharto Indonesia,” claims that the resurgence of Islam in Java, Indonesia and consequently the wearing of the veil or the jilbab is not necessarily tied to traditional values of Islam, embraced as a uniform practice religiously or politically, or by any means fixed as a statement and practice assumed by Javanese women. In this piece, Smith-Hefner examines several different case...